ADSL ISPs suffer at hands of Telkom

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are complaining profusely about the poor service they receive from Telkom regarding the ADSL wholesale products.

Telkom released their ADSL Resell product earlier this year, allowing ISPs to resell the access portion of the ADSL service. This resulted in various ‘combined price’ ADSL services entering the consumer market, including Telkom’s own Do Broadband offering.

Despite the low margins, financial risks and additional work associated with the ADSL Resell product, ISPs still made the most of the opportunity in the hope of improving service delivery to their customers.

It however quickly emerged that something is amiss.

The feedback on the ADSL Resell product from many ISPs is that orders get lost, they receive below par service delivery and their clients are frequently denied the service through their ISP and then Telkom offer the same client this service directly.

Customers, who are unaware of how the system works, often blame their ISPs for the poor service delivery, which means that the ISP not only loses business but also has to repair the damage to their brand.

ISPs speak out

According to Matthew Tag, MD of WebAfrica, this poor service is associated with new ADSL orders and the transfer of existing lines. Tagg pointed to lack of control by ISPs as one of problems aggravating the situation.

Laurie Fialkov, MD of Cybersmart, says that the situation is so bad that his company has invested in a custom build system just to manage the process.

“If you phone the Telkom retail helpdesk you get an order number over the phone. For ADSL resell, you are supposed to get orders within 48 clock hours. This is so rare it is scary, we have written software just to manage this process,” said Fialkov.

MyBroadband was given access to this system, and can confirm that according to the system there are numerous orders pending which have been waiting for over 100 hours.

Fialkov said that the excuses are simply not good enough any more. “In some cases we have been waiting 500 hours just for an order number. The current excuse is that the person looking after our orders has a "crashed" computer. Last week someone died, the previous week the person was on leave – the excuses continue.”

Another ISP, who asked to remain anonymous, said that they have waited as long as two weeks for an order number, and when they requested feedback from Telkom they did not even bother to reply to emails. “It is a nightmare. Escalate the issue and the situation gets even worse – don’t expect any feedback then,” said the MD.

Fialkov confirms this sad situtation, pointing out that there is no ‘wholesale option’ for feedback and that ISPs have to phone the helpdesk like everyone else. “After a 20 minute wait you can get through to the helpdesk, but the "business process" is that we are only allowed 3 updates at a time. [This] takes someone here the whole week when you have to follow up on 300 [orders]. We have 3 phones on speaker phone dialed in to this number constantly just so that we can get updates.”

The situation has deteriorated to such a degree that at least one ISP has stopped reselling the product altogether.

Well known ADSL ISP – Axxess – has the following message greeting prospective ADSL line clients on their website “We regret to announce that due to circumstances beyond our control we will not be accepting any new line orders for the next 4 weeks.”

Anti-competitive

Apart from poor service, there have also been accusations that Telkom is denying ISPs orders – citing issues like ‘Fibre Exchange’ – but when the same client phones Telkom Internet an order is approved.

When ISPs were contacted regarding this issue it seemed to be a common occurrence.

Fialkov explains the situation: “Instead of getting an order number you can get ‘DSLAM project’ or ‘no ports available’, which can mean absolutely anything. It may mean DSLAM project, in which case installation can take months and there is no possible way to get a completion date, it may mean that self install is not available or in most cases it means that Telkom have reserved this port for Telkom Internet.”

“As policy whenever we get a ‘DSLAM project’ or ‘no ports available’ we order on behalf of the client via the retail helpdesk and more than 50% of the time we get an order number and the line installed within 7 days. Nobody can explain how come wholesale told us it was a ‘DSLAM project’ yet the retail helpdesk manages to install the very same order for the very same customer within 7 days,” Fialkov said.

Another ISP owner, which would like to remain anonymous, says that they are experiencing ‘this behaviour’ when customers deal with Telkom at their outlets.

Losing orders

Lost orders are another issue many ISPs complain about.

“They [Telkom] just 'lose' 2 days worth of orders we've put through. It's hard to say if its intentional or just bungling,” said WebAfrica’s Matthew Tagg.

Cybersmart’s Fialkov confirms this problem: “We had 87 ‘lost’ orders miraculously being found after raising my voice some a couple of decibels. Then on numerous occasions an ADSL resell order becomes a Telkom order and not resell orders at all.”

A complaint has been lodged with the Competition Commission regarding this issue.

Telkom responds

Telkom did not directly address these allegations, as to whether they received complaints from ISPs or why there is not a dedicated helpline for ADSL ISPs, but did say that they are engaging with their wholesale customers on a daily basis.

“Telkom is continuously engaged with our wholesale customers, on a daily basis, to address any possible DSL resell matters. In addition to this Telkom is busy streamlining processes and developing new functionalities on our systems to aid our wholesale customers in offering an improved service to their customers,” said Lulu Letlape, Group Executive for Corporate Communication at Telkom.

ISPs are however not too optimistic that things will change anytime soon, and according to a source, Telkom is currently working on an ISP system which may only be ready early next year.

Apart from the recent complaint, the Internet Service Providers Association of South Africa (ISPA) has two other complaints pending with the Competitions Authority.

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